The embodiments herein relate generally to light-emitted diode (LED) replacement lights designed for use in fluorescent lighting systems. The LED light may match the form factor, installation system, and operation of a fluorescent bulb. In addition, the LED light may include local failure detection, color changes functionality, or both.
As labor and inventory costs across the world are increasing and lighting systems becoming more complicated, it is increasingly important to provide the technicians who service these systems with indications to help them troubleshoot these devices. For example, with current fluorescent systems, when a fluorescent bulb stops illuminating, it is not apparent whether a fluorescent bulb has burned out or if the fluorescent ballast has failed. Troubleshooting this type of failure can become time consuming as the technician first has to gain access to the fluorescent fixture, which may require additional tools such as a ladder, cherry-picker or scaffolding, remove and replace the bulb, and finally identify whether the fluorescent bulb or the ballast has failed and replace accordingly.
Existing fluorescent bulb technology uses are limited to a single color of light emitted. If another color is desired, the bulb needs to be replaced with another color bulb.
Another common alternative of changing the emitted light color is to use a color sleeve to change the color of the bulb. However, this requires an agent to gain access to the fluorescent bulb, remove it, insert the color sleeve over the bulb and then replace the fluorescent bulb. Both of these options are costly and labor intensive.
LED replacement lights for fluorescent bulbs have been produced in the past. These replacement lights provide general illumination through the use of LEDs in a fixture that matches the existing form factor and electrical connections of a fluorescent bulb. However, current solutions do not incorporate a failure indicator to easily indicate if the source of an outage is a failure in the ballast or in the LED light itself. Current solutions do not protect the internal circuitry of an LED light from a ballast's strike voltage following the failure of one or more LEDs. Current solutions do not provide a color change capability using the existing dimming controls of fluorescent ballasts.